NUMMULITES 



NURAGHE 



553 



and ko-ban, some of which are more than 6 inches 

 in length. Like China, Japan has now adopted a 

 currency modelled on the European pattern. 



The standard works on Greek Numismatics in general 

 are Eckhel's Doctrina Numorum (1792-98); Mionnet, 

 Description des MtdaiHei yrecques (1807-37); B. V. 

 Head, Historia Numoram (Oxford, 1887), and Guide 

 to the Principal Gold and Silver Coin* of the Ancienti 

 (3d ed. 1889); and the Catalogues of Greek Coins in the 

 British Museum, (1873 et fcq.}. On Roman coins the 

 chief works are Mommsen, Hutoire de la Monnaie 

 romaine (trans, by Blacas, Paris, 18G5-75); E. Babelon, 

 Monnaies de la Rtpublique romainc (1885); and J. 

 Sabatier, Monnaies byzantines ( 18G2 ). On mediaeval, 

 modern, and oriental coins there are L. W. Wellenheim, 

 Cataloyuc de Monnaies et MedaiUes ( 1845) ; C. F. Keary, 

 Coinage! of Wettern Europe (1879); Coim and Medal* 

 (ed. by S. Lane-Poole, 1885); J. A. Blanchet, Numis- 

 mutii/ue du Moyen Afie et Moderne (1890); A. Engel 

 and R. Serrure, Traite de Numismatique du Moyen 

 Age (1891); Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great 

 Britain (18*0); Hawkins, Silver Coins of England 

 (1887); Kenyon, Gold Coins of Emjland (1884); and 

 the Britinh. Museum Catalogue* of Oriental Coins, by 

 a Lane-foole and R. S. 1'oole (1875-90). 



\lllllliilllitrs. or NuMMUUNA ('money- 

 fnssils ' ), a genus of fossil foraminifera, the shells 

 of which form immense masses of rock of Eocene 

 age. They are circular bodies of a lenticular 

 shape, varying in magnitude from the merest 

 point to the size of a florin or larger. The shell 

 is composed of a series of small chambers arranged 

 in a concentric manner. The growth of the shell 

 does not take place only around the circumference, 

 but each whorl invests all the preceding whorls, so 

 as to form a new layer over the entire surface of 

 the disc, thus adding to the thickness as well as 

 the breadth, and giving the fossil its lenticular 



form. A thin 

 interveni ng 

 space separates 

 each layer from 

 the one which 

 it covers, and 

 this space at 

 the margin 

 swells out to 

 form the cham- 

 ber. All the 

 internal cavi- 

 ties, however, 



Numumlites. 



seem to have 



been occupied with the living sarcode, and an 

 intimate connection was maintained l>etween them 

 by means of innumerable parallel tubuli, which 

 everywhere pass from one surface to another, and 

 which permitted the passage of the sarcode as freely 

 as do the minute pores or foramina of the living 

 foraminifera. The name is given to them from 

 their resemblance to coins. The genus apjiears 

 first in the Carboniferous system, where it is repre- 

 sented by one small form. Several species are also 

 met with in Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks, but the 

 genus reached its maximum in Eocene times. It 

 i represented at present by only a few small forms. 

 NITMMULITE LIMESTONE, an important memlier 

 of the Eocene system of southern Europe, &c., 

 consists of a limestone composed of nummulites 

 held together by a matrix funned of the com- 

 minuted particles of their shells, and of smaller 

 foraminifera. It attains a thickness of several 

 thousand feet, and lias been traced over a vast 

 area. It occurs on both sides of the Mediterranean 

 basin, in Spain and in Morocco. It enters largely 

 into the composition of the Apennines, the Alps, 

 the Carpathians, and the Balkans ; it extends 

 through Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor, and 

 th. !... through P*ni and the Himalayas to the 

 coasts of China and Japan. 



\llll (A.S. nunna; Low Lat. nunna or nonna, 

 ' mother ; ' Gr. nanne, neiina, ' aunt ; ' Sansk. nanA, 

 a familiar word for 'mother,' corresponding to 

 Sansk. tatcl, 'father'), a member of a religious 

 order of women. The general characteristics of 

 the religious orders will be found under the head 

 MOXACHISM (q.v. ) and under those of the several 

 orders. Of arrangements peculiar to the religious 

 orders of women the most striking perhaps is the 

 strictness in the regularly authorised orders of 

 nuns taking solemn vows, nuns of the 'cloister,' 

 or enclosure, which no extern is ever permitted to 

 enter, and beyond which the nuns are never per- 

 mitted to pass, without express leave of the bishop. 

 The superiors of convents of nuns are called by the 

 names Abl>e.s, Prioress, and, in general, Mother 

 Superior. They are, ordinarily speaking, elected 

 by chapters of their own body, with the approval 

 of the bishop, unless the convent be one of the 

 class called exempt houses, which are, immediately 

 subject to the authority of the holy see. The 

 ceremony of the solemn blessing or inauguration of 

 the abl>ess is reserved to the bishop, or to a priest 

 delegated by the bishop. The authority of the 

 abbess over her nuns is very comprehensive, but a 

 precise line is drawn between her powers and those 

 of the priestly office, from which she is strictly 

 debarred. The name of nun is given in general to 

 the sisters of all religious congregations of females 

 who live in retirement and are bound bv rule ; but 

 it is primitively and properly applicable only to 

 sisters of the religious orders strictly so called. In 

 most cases, soon after the foundation of the orders 

 for men corresponding orders have been established 

 for women. 'I he usages as. to diet, fasting, cloth- 

 ing, &c. are very various in the different com- 

 munities. The veil of reception given to a postu- 

 lant at the lginuing of her novitiate is white ; 

 that of profession, given at the end of it, is black 

 in some orders, white in others. 



\IHM- Hi III if (is. the name given to the canticle 

 of Simeon (Luke, ii. 29-32), which forms part of 

 the compline ollice of the Roman Breviary, and is 

 retained in the evening service of the Anglican 

 Church when it follows the second lesson. 



Nuncio. See LEGATE. 



ViiiK-oniar. See HASTINGS (\VARREN). 



Nlliulydroog (.Vimt/ii/n'tij), a fortified hill in 

 Mysore, 31 miles N. of Bangalore, and 4810 feet 

 above the sea. The extensive fortifications on the 

 plateau summit were erected by Hyder Ali and 

 Tippoo Saib, and were stormed by a British force in 

 1791. The place is now used as a health-resort by 

 Europeans from Bangalore. 



\lineatoil. a market-town of Warwickshire, 

 on the river Anker and the Coventry Canal, 14 

 miles NNW. of Rugby, 9 N. by E. (if Coventry, 

 and 22 E. of Birmingham. It has a good Gothic 

 parish church, some remains of a 12th-century 

 nunnery, with a modern church built thereon, and 

 a grammar-school ( 1553). The ribbon manufacture 

 has given place to worsted, cotton, and woollen 

 spinning. 'George Eliot,' born at Arbury Farm, two 

 miles to the south, went to school at Nuneaton, and 

 here witnessed the riot described in Felix Holt. 

 Pop. of parish (1881) 8465; (18U1) 11,580. 



XnragllC, or NURHAO, the name of round 

 towers, in shape truncated cones, of which 3000 are 

 scattered almut the island of Sardinia. They vary 

 from 20 to 60 feet in diameter, rise 30 or 40 feet 

 alx)ve the ground, with two or three stories of 

 domed chamlierB connected by a spiral staircase, 

 and are made of granite, limestone, basalt, por- 

 phyry, sandstone, and schist, built in regular courses 

 of roughly-hewn stone, without cement. Some of 

 the stones in the lower courses weigh 12 tons each. 

 Believed to be of Phoenician origin, they closely 



